After hours of learning CSS layouts for the first time and attempting to code mine just the way I wanted it, I've got everything finally right.

Everything except one small issue.

I can't seem to get the right padding on my main content column (main_body) to go into effect. I'm nearly positive this has something to do with the fact that I'm floating that main column left. Or something else obvious. But I don't know enough about CSS just yet to understand what to do differently or how to fix it so that the content on the right side of the main column doesn't press right up against the sidebar (navbar) on the right.

I couldn't test this fully, but combined all your separate CSS file into one (which makes it easier to see what's going on -- such as font-family being repeated). Added a #main_container to encompass both #main_body and #sidebar, and created #main_body p { text-align: left; padding: 0 20px; }